The dangerous US-Saudi attempt of regime change in Pakistan

Pakistan witnesses the largest political crisis in recent years. Leaders of the main opposition parties called on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to step down because of the corruption charges brought against him by the investigation team formed by the country's Supreme Court. Increasing instability in the only Muslim country that possesses nuclear weapons raises fears of experts.

The crisis began with the publication of the famous Panama Papers  in April 2016. Among the published documents, there was also compromising evidence on the family of the Pakistani prime minister. According to them, the children of Sharif allegedly related to offshore companies Nescoll Limited, Nielson Holdings Limited, Coomber Group Inc., and Hangon Property Holdings Limited. From 2006 to 2007, these firms were engaged in buying up elite housing in London for a total of up to 13.8 million dollars.

The political scientist from Bangladesh Ahmed Rajeev shared his view on the origins and prospects of political crisis:

6^th April 2016, Wikileaks revealed that Panama Papers leak was funded by USAID and George Soros’s Open Society Foundation. Many analysts agreed that the US government is pursuing a worldwide destabilization policy, and the particular Panama papers leak has been serving the purpose of destabilization since the country has been losing her liberal imperial adventures and now wants all the dollars back into her vault in the coming period of great financial crisis. Therefore, the Panama papers leak is not trustworthy at all. It serves primarily the US interest. Moreover, Pakistan’s main opposition leader Imran Khan is acting as political puppet of the US. He and his party are following the so called Panama paper leaks to mobilize people against the prime minister undermining the negative consequences.

On July 7th 2017, the former Pakistani army chief retired Gen Raheel Sharif, the head of the Saudi-led Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism came from Saudi Arabia by a special plane. Local media reported that some Saudi nationals accompanied Gen Sharif who reportedly left for his residence from Lahore airport’s old terminal while the Saudis moved to a local hotel. His surprising come back coincided with the timing of corruption probe against Nawaz Sharif. Therefore, a ground breaking role can be speculated from the ex-army chief. On the other hand, the US is not willing to pull off so easily from the only Muslim country that has nuclear bombs. It is also true that regarding Pakistan, the US and Saudi Arabia both have similar aim of controlled destabilization in the region for gaining geostrategic upper hand in dealing Russia, China, India, Central Asia and Iran. Therefore, the opposition leader Imran Khan and Gen Raheel Sharif both have the same aim of regime change. I assume they are working together.

It is also well known fact that Pakistan was supported heavily for a very long period of time on the military ground by the US for implementing the US favored geopolitical and geostrategic policy in the Af-Pak region and to increase influence in Central Asia, Iran and India aimed at containing Russia and China. But the current government under Nawaz Sharif appeared as an obstacle to implement such western project since he has given more importance to China-Pakistan relationship and Russia-Pakistan relationship than that of US-Pakistan. Subsequently, the US policy makers are very possibly seeking regime change in Pakistan to destabilize the country in order to disrupt the CPEC project and the Russia-Pakistan rapprochement under the double containment or neo-containment policy.

The current political tension of Pakistan will be raised more. Already, Nawaz Sharif said that he would not step down. Therefore, there is a high chance of high-conflict oriented political and security instability inside Pakistan. Such security chaos also has the potential to turn into regional chaos if any external force supports to expand the radical extremism as a proxy force as we have observed in Syria and Iraq and several other places of Middle East crisis. Since Pakistan has nuclear arsenals, the proxy war will be very risky for the South Asian region. Terrorists will seek to use those weapons against adversaries to create a long lasting fear of nuclear massacre.